


Give 'Em the Old One-Two

by sara_wolfe



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, guess which one Aziraphale chose, or fight everyone and it'll never be a problem, pick your battles wisely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_wolfe/pseuds/sara_wolfe
Summary: Between him and Crowley, Aziraphale's supposed to be the peaceful one. Too bad no one thought to tell Aziraphale that.





	Give 'Em the Old One-Two

**48 AD**

Crowley never could have imagined that, out of the two of them, Aziraphale would be the one constantly getting into trouble. Nor could he have imagined himself as the one constantly pulling Aziraphale out of that trouble. Yet here he was, placing himself directly into the middle of an argument as he fought to both keep Aziraphale from physically attacking a loudmouthed politician, and also keep Aziraphale from getting himself arrested and thrown in the gladiatorial arena to face the lions. 

Just because things had worked out for Daniel didn’t mean that Aziraphale would be so lucky. 

“Many apologies for my friend, Praetor,” Crowley said, as he clamped a hand over Aziraphale’s mouth to keep him from saying something unfortunate. “He’s drunk, and he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“I should have your friend executed!” the Praetor snarled, furiously, “and you along with him!”

The fact that he wasn’t, even though he was certainly powerful enough to, was due to Crowley exerting enough demonic influence to dissuade him from that very idea. He couldn’t manage any more than that, though; the rest of his energy was taken up simply trying to contain the enraged angel struggling in his arms. Instead, he shot the Praetor as charming a smile as he could manage under the circumstances, holding his breath as he waited for the axe to fall.

Finally, the Praetor took a step back, and Crowley slumped in relief. “Get out of my sight,” the Praetor ordered, brusquely. 

Crowley bowed as low as he dared, forcing Aziraphale into a bow with him. He started to drag Aziraphale backward, away from the Praetor, when Aziraphale made an angry noise against the hand still muffling him into silence and Crowley was reminded of exactly why Aziraphale had almost started a brawl in the first place. Sighing, he redirected a bit of demonic energy back at the Praetor, carefully influencing him. 

“Wait!” the Praetor snapped, stopping them in their tracks. “Take that with you!” he ordered, grabbing the terrified slave he’d been abusing and shoving the poor boy in Crowley’s direction. 

Crowley didn’t waste any time, grabbing the slave and dragging him along as he pulled Aziraphale out of the town square and into a thankfully-empty temple at the end of the street. In the cool darkness of the building, he let go of both Aziraphale and the slave, blocking the doorway with his body just in case the terrified boy ruined all his hard work by trying to make a run for it. 

“I thought,” he said to Aziraphale, when it looked like no one else was going to speak first, “that you were supposed to keep a low profile while you’re here.”

“I couldn’t just let him keep beating the boy!” Aziraphale insisted, hotly, still worked up from the fight he’d almost gotten in. 

“So you decided you’d attack one of the most powerful men in Rome and almost get yourself discorporated?” Crowley demanded, incredulously. “How would that have helped the boy?”

The boy in question was eying the door behind Crowley, like he was still considering running, and Crowley snapped his fingers, impatiently. The boy collapsed in a graceless heap, unconscious, and Aziraphale shot him a disapproving look when he nearly hit his head on a stone plinth on the way down. Crowley ignored him; out of the both of them, Aziraphale was not the one with the moral high ground, here.

“He was beating the boy,” Aziraphale insisted, softer now. “He would have killed him if I hadn’t intervened. I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.”

“But fisticuffs?” Crowley asked. “Angel, have you ever even been in a physical fight before?”

“Wellll,” Aziraphale said, drawing out the word, “Not as such. But I knew what to do, in theory.”

“In theory,” Crowley repeated, shaking his head. “Angel, sometimes-” He trailed off with a soft chuckle, earning a curious look from Aziraphale, but he wasn’t going to finish that sentence. Not here, and certainly not now. “Promise me,” he said, instead, “promise me that this will be the first and last fight I ever have to pull you out of.”

“I promise,” Aziraphale said, a sweet tone in his voice that Crowley didn’t trust for a second.

* * *

**1994**

The sounds of eager shouting, the unmistakable thud of fists on flesh, drew Crowley down the busy Soho street like a moth of a flame. He wasn’t one for personally inciting violence, but he couldn’t deny a certain thrill at the sight of a good fist fight. Especially if the people fighting really deserved to get walloped. 

Of course, that assumed he didn’t have a stake in the fight. 

Not that he’d intended to have a stake in this one, but then he caught a flash of white-blond hair and a sense of flared wings, and his heart sank. Before he could think about what he was doing, Crowley squared his shoulders and shoved through the crowds forming a ring in the middle of the sidewalk, into the heart of the fight. 

Without hesitation, he reached out and grabbed the nearest body and hauled backward, sending a baffled young man stumbling backward into the people behind them. Two more brawlers went the same way, and then he was close enough to reach Aziraphale. And Aziraphale was close enough to reach him. 

Blinding pain erupted in his jaw as Aziraphale plowed his fist directly into Crowley’s face. Crowley grunted, reeling back in shock.

“Fuck!” he yelled, and if an unconscious slip of power accompanying his yell scared the crowds into scattering, well, all the better. 

Alone with Aziraphale in the middle of the suddenly-empty sidewalk, Crowley ducked another swinging fist, dancing nimbly out of the way. He caught a flash of something dark and dangerous in Aziraphale’s eyes as the angel stumbled past him, and then Crowley was behind him, and he lunged forward to wrap his arms around Aziraphale from behind. He pinned Aziraphale’s wings down with the full weight of his body as he held tightly to Aziraphale’s wildly-struggling form. Aziraphale wasn’t calming down now that his opponents were gone, if anything he was getting worse, and Crowley had a bad feeling about what was happening to him. 

“Sorry about this,” he said, quietly, and then he freed a hand long enough to put his fingers on Aziraphale’s forehead and use a quick burst of power to knock him unconscious. 

Aziraphale slumped suddenly in his arms and Crowley shifted his grip, effortlessly lifting the angel into his arms. He directed another quick bit of energy to making sure no one cared enough to investigate what they were doing, and then he headed down the sidewalk to Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

The door swung open as he approached, and then shut just as quietly behind them. Crowley flipped the closed sign over with a quick thought, dimming the lights to keep away any curious onlookers, and headed for the bedroom upstairs. Laying Aziraphale out on the bed, Crowley sat down beside him and ran his fingers gently across Aziraphale’s forehead, searching. It only took a second to find what he was looking for, and he scowled when his suspicions were confirmed. Demonic energy was woven in and around Aziraphale’s halo, darkening the normally-incandescent light. _Familiar_ demonic energy. 

“I’m going to kill Hastur,” Crowley said, conversationally, even though Aziraphale was currently incapable of answering him. “Rip that fucking frog off his head and make him eat it.”

Carding his fingers gently through Aziraphale’s short hair, he projected a metaphysical hand into the same space as Aziraphale’s halo, carefully untangling the threads of demonic energy. He gathered the energy around his fingers, absorbing it back into himself where it couldn’t hurt Aziraphale any longer. It made him nauseous, his stomach cramping with pain at having even that much of Hastur so close to him, but better him than the angel. 

It took a long time to make sure he’d gotten every speck of energy; some of it was wound so tightly around Aziraphale’s halo that it left deep, ugly grooves that would be long in healing. He did what he could to heal the damage left behind, easing pain as much as he was able. He worked slowly, carefully, to ensure that he didn’t miss anything, and when he was finally satisfied that he’d done all he could, he removed his ethereal presence from Aziraphale’s mind. 

Aziraphale had fallen even deeper into sleep while Crowley worked, the lines of pain easing from his face. Crowley couldn’t resist reaching out again to touch Aziraphale, brushing a lock of hair away from his eyes and soothing the lines on his forehead. 

“You’re going to be all right now, Angel,” he said, quietly, smiling when Aziraphale turned instinctively toward the sound of his voice, even in sleep. “I promise, I won’t let anyone hurt you like that, again.”

* * *

**2013**

“Nanny, Nanny, Nanny!”

Over the past year, Crowley had become intimately familiar with Warlock’s various tones. This one, unrestrained delight and excitement, usually meant only good things. However, when Crowley looked up to see a devious grin on the little boy’s face as he barreled toward him, Crowley started to get a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

“Nanny!” Warlock cried, leaping trustingly into the air. Crowley wrapped his arms around the little boy, swinging him through the air and making Warlock giggle happily, and then he set him down on a nearby chair. 

“Now what’s got you so worked up?” he asked, looking down at Warlock. “I thought you and Brother Francis were going over to look at the penguins. And where is Brother Francis?” he added, realizing that Warlock had come running up alone. 

“He punched a bad man in the mouth!” Warlock said, so excited he was practically bouncing in place. “Then the zoo police came and took him away, and they tried to get me, too, but I bit them just like you taught me and came to find you! They tried to run after me, but I was too fast for ‘em!”

Warlock beamed up at him, clearly expecting Crowley to be proud of him. And Crowley was - so very, very proud of his little Antichrist, already biting strangers and causing chaos. But he was also still fixated on Warlock’s first piece of information.

“Brother Francis hit someone?” he asked, incredulously. 

Not that he should be surprised anymore, given how many fights he’d pulled Aziraphale out of over the years. But the angel was supposed to be a good influence on Warlock; he wasn’t supposed to be going around punching people in the face. 

“Kapow!” Warlock shrieked, taking a wild swing with his fist that almost knocked him off the bench. “It was so cool, Nanny! You should have seen it!”

“Yes, I should have,” Crowley agreed, as he silently resolved to never let Aziraphale out of his sight, ever again. “Now, what do you say we go collect Brother Francis from the zoo police?”

Warlock jumped up, eagerly, grabbing onto Crowley’s hand and swinging their joined arms as they headed up the path toward the entrance. They found the security office - “Zoo jail!” Warlock cried - next to the gift shop and went inside to get Aziraphale. 

Crowley pressed his lips together tightly at the sight of the angel sitting in a tiny folding chair between a pair of hulking security guards. He supposed he looked intimidating and disapproving, from the way both guards backed up upon seeing him, but he was honestly just trying not to laugh. Aziraphale looked positively miserable as he hunched over in his seat, radiating shame and guilt, wringing his hands in a nervous tic Crowley thought he’d given up a few hundred years ago. 

Crowley took a second to make sure his face was set in a neutral mask; laughing would not only give Warlock the wrong idea, it would make Aziraphale even more upset than he clearly already was. 

“Gentlemen,” he said, to the security guards, “I’ve come to collect my colleague. I understand there was a bit of trouble?”

“He assaulted another patron-” one of the guards started, and Crowley had heard enough. 

He waved a hand, freezing the humans in place, and Aziraphale looked up at him in shock. Crowley supposed that Aziraphale had his reasons for not performing a miracle to get himself out of trouble, but Crowley had no such compunctions. 

“Crowley-” Aziraphale started, but Crowley pinned him with a sharp look. 

“You promised not to get into any more fights,” he said, fighting to sound stern. “Aziraphale, what kind of example are you setting for the boy, going around brawling?”

“I was provoked,” Aziraphale said, a defensive tone in his voice. “That cretin insulted Warlock.”

Crowley went from amused to enraged in a heartbeat. “Who?” he demanded, darkly. 

“I’ve taken care of it,” Aziraphale told him, and Crowley took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. 

Aziraphale loved Warlock just as much as he did; if Aziraphale said he took care of things, then there was nothing more that Crowley could do. No matter how much he wanted to track down the person who’d insulted his little boy and make them suffer. 

“Then let’s put this entire thing behind us,” Crowley declared. “Like you already should have?” he prompted, expectantly, and Aziraphale blushed. 

“I may not have set a good example to Warlock by fighting,” he said, primly, “but I wanted to show him that one should always accept the consequences of their actions.”

“Well, it’s no Bastille,” Crowley replied, “but you do have a penchant for landing yourself in jail, don’t you?”

Aziraphale blushed even deeper, and this time Crowley did laugh at him. With another wave of his hand, he modified the memories of the security guards and Warlock, making everyone think that Aziraphale had been suitably chastised for his misbehavior. Unfreezing the rest of the room, he shot the security guards a smile. 

“Thank you again, gentlemen,” he said, opening the door behind him and ushering Warlock and Aziraphale outside. “I can assure you, nothing like this will ever happen again.”

Before either of the men could say anything, he was out the door, and the three of them had disappeared down the nearest path. Crowley hustled them along without really looking at where they were going and when they finally stopped, they were standing in front of a food cart selling all sorts of different ice cream flavors. Warlock turned pleading eyes on Crowley.

“Yes, yes,” he agreed, with a fond sigh. “We’ll all get ice cream. Although,” he added, shooting Aziraphale a look, “I’m not sure if Brother Francis deserves any.”

The positively heartbroken look on Aziraphale’s face made Crowley burst into laughter.


End file.
